


Vigil

by shobogan



Category: Birds of Prey (Comic), DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-22 11:04:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4833050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shobogan/pseuds/shobogan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dinah is missing, and Barbara isn't handling it very well. </p><p>Fortunately, she's not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> This is set somewhere in the first quarter of Birds of Prey.
> 
> There are also implications of Barbara/Dinah and Ted/Booster. \o/
> 
> The teen rating is for Barbara's nightmare, there's gore and death in there.

She doesn’t have nightmares very often, any more. Not the really bad ones.

It took a while, of course. Those first months, all she had was pain and fear, burying her in bitter helplessness. Fortunately, she was given the right tools to dig herself out.

Confess, confront, control. Over and over, until she could sleep without cordite in her nose and blood in her mouth, until his laughter didn’t ring in her ears. She’s had her ups and downs, of course, but mostly - mostly, she’s found a level of peace inside her mind.

The last time she dreamt of that day was Dinah’s first mission - barely a year ago, but it feels like a lifetime. It was Dinah’s voice, then, that drew her back into the present. It was Dinah's voice that led her into the future, too.

“You’re zoning.”

She starts, before reaching over and whapping Ted’s shoulder. “I don’t zone. I ruminate.”

Ted looks deeply sceptical, from his computer chair. (He finally brought one of his own over, because “they know me and I trust them”.) She can’t really blame him; she can only imagine how haggard she looks, after five days of radio silence.

“I can do all this.” He gestures at the computers - the communications they’re monitoring, the satellite views, the news footage. “You should sleep for more than five minutes at a time.”

“Oh, _you’re_ the responsible one now?”

“That should tell you something, right?” He’s got that sly smile, the sort she could sense over the internet before she knew his face. Five parts goofy, five parts cunning, five parts stubborn as a bull.

Barbara sighs, shoving a hand through her hair. (It’s more tangles than waves.) “A few hours, maybe.”

“Great!” In half a second he’s up and pushing her over to the couch. She makes a token noise of protest, which he happily ignores. Why does she always fall for the biggest pains in her ass?

“Rest. The moment something happens, I’ll shout for you. I know you’ll hear me, you’re freaky like that.”

“Not everyone sleeps like the dead.” It would be a more effective retort if she didn’t yawn in the middle. Ignoring his smirk, she manoeuvres herself onto the couch and grabs the afghan slung over the back. (It’s all the colours of the evening sky, and drapes over her perfectly; Alfred made it for her years ago.)

“The _moment_ ,” she mutters, as she buries her face in the pillows.

 

Ted shakes his head as he turns away, wondering when exactly he became a mature caretaker.

“She just brings that out in me, I guess.” His voice is soft - her hearing _is_ freaky - and his laughter is softer. Booster would get a ton of mileage out of this.

The thought makes him walk faster. What Booster is to him, Dinah is to Barbara; losing them would be like losing part of themselves.

It’s easy to sink into the routine of search and (eventually, hopefully, please) rescue. There’s so much to monitor, to research, to investigate. He’s in communication with people out in the field - Nightwing with Arsenal, Batgirl with the new Green Arrow, Wildcat by himself - searching Oracle's three best guesses. (Well, hypotheses. Barbara doesn't really _guess_.)

And then there’s everything that _isn’t_ about Dinah. Funnelling money from rich villains' bank accounts is the easiest part. Advising various super teams is trickier, but fortunately Barbara has a ton of notes on the best procedures. (Robin calls in for it once, but it's clear five seconds in that he's really checking on Barbara.) Then there's, you know, spying on government agencies.

 _How does she do this every day?_ It’s a thought that’s crossed his mind before. Calling himself a genius is the modest option, but he’d rather make a Bug from scratch and crash it twice than handle _this_ all the time.

It’s a couple of hours into it that he hears Barbara’s breath quicken. He ignores it, at first; he really, really doesn’t want to wake her up unless he has to. (And she might punch him on reflex. That would hurt.)

But then she’s screaming.

Ted whips around, eyes wide, as Barbara claws at nothing, tears streaking her cheeks as one desperate, agonised word tears from her throat again and again; _no, no, no_.

For a moment, he’s paralysed; then he’s at her side, holding her arms down. “Barbara. Barbara!”

 

It's just a dream, at first. She's strolling through a city - sometimes Ohio, sometimes Gotham, sometimes Metropolis - as the sun rises and sets and rises again, chatting and laughing without fear or urgency. She has her arm tucked around Dinah's waist, or a hand on Cassandra's shoulder; she's surrounded by family long gone; she's chasing the flash of Robin's cape. She tastes chocolate mint ice cream, and smells her mother's perfume, and she is safe and loved and content.

Then, in the distance, a cackle chills the air. Robin disappears in a plume of flame as the sky turns red, and she can't feel Cassandra besides her any more, and everything hurts

The world collapses into blood and screams, and she’s running but she can’t move, and they’re all dying, all of them, she has Ted's heart in her hands and

“You thought you could save her, didn’t you?”

High and thin and cruel as he descends from the crumbling rooftops, Dinah’s body dangling from his hands and dropping into her lap, please wake up, please, I’m so sorry

“Barbara!”

Louder than the Joker, louder and warmer and she wants to follow it away but her hands are tangled in Dinah’s hair and

“ _Barbara_!”

 

She’s still sobbing when she gasps awake, and she tries to lash out but her arms are trapped, she’s still trapped -

“Barbara.” His voice again, strained but soothing as he stares down at her. “Barbara, look at me. Just - just breathe, okay?”

Look. Think. Breathe.

She knows how to do this.

She keeps her eyes trained on his as she calms down, gulping down the sobs and swallowing the screams. This is her tower, and this is her friend, and she is safe, and -

“Dinah - ”

His eyes widen, a little - realisation, she thinks - before shaking his head. “Nothing yet. But we’re going to find her, Babs.”

She closes her eyes, and swallows again, and tries to cling to hope. 

Ted’s hands slip from her arms; she reaches up to catch them with her own.

“Sorry.” Her eyes open again to a crooked smile.

“'Sorry’, she says.” He squeezes her hands, and shakes his head. “I’m here for you, Barbara. Always.”

She’s never smiled so easily, after a nightmare.


End file.
